Changes: The Only Constant

Dale Warther lost his battle to cancer. I don’t know if you’ll recognize his name. I don’t think he ever won an award from Blade Magazine. He was never on Celebrity Apprentice or WWF. Warther knife designs haven’t changed significantly in years since master carver Mooney Warther. Each knife comes with old fashioned quality and value, pride of workmanship and an understanding that form must be a handmaiden to function. With a little care on your part, they are the knives you’ll leave to your children.

Dale was part of the knife world foundation. I met him through a knife club and he always had a good word and time to talk about knives. He will be sorely missed.



Saturday was shaping up to be an exciting weekend but a turn of events raised the table stakes. Not all excitement is a good thing and sometimes change brings mixed blessings. My mother-in-law needed to taken to emergency with the blessings of her cardiologist.

Thankfully it wasn’t her heart after all, but she experienced a drop in hemoglobin while in the hospital. Hemoglobin is an iron based molecule in red blood cells that transports oxygen and carbon dioxide in our bodies. I vaguely remember studying its biochemistry. Microscopic changes in the body’s acid concentrations cause the molecule to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. It’s another knife edge the body maintains.

We had to take the long way to the hospital because the expressway was backed up. I found myself at a T-intersection at University of Akron. (So now you know where I live…) The light was red for me and apparently red for the car on my left. It was also the only other automobile at the intersection or visible is this small part of the universe. Mom’s in the back seat and she’s as well as can be expected, but I need to get her to the hospital. Let me explain need.

It’s quite indescribable. Strip way the veneer of civilization, no matter how thick or thin. Then expose that inner primal creature with a single thought. That thought needs no justification or explanation; it simply exists to make a single demand. Last Saturday the demand was to get to the hospital.

So given this barking, gnawing, demanding creature locked in my soul, I gave serious thought to blowing the light. One little brain cell kept telling me that if I ventured into the intersection against the red, that would be the exact second the other car would also decided to blow the light. Knowing this is one thing, but the creature kept flapping its bat–like wings demanding that I do SOMETHING.

I was about to hit the emergency flashers and horn when the traffic light resolved the situation and we proceeded into the intersection under the green light.

Later in the emergency waiting room I realized we live on a knife edge. Some days it’s a little dull and the footing more relaxed. Your mistakes can slide you forward or backward and you can noodle around with impunity. Other days you’re unknowingly and precariously balanced on the wire edge and a mistaken breath will push you off the edge and into the abyss.